The most helpful favourable review

The most helpful critical review

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 starsThe Adventures Of Tintin (blu ray)...Another Masterpiece From Steven Spielberg! Final cost is $16.99...Amazing value!
VIDEO:

The Adventures Of Tintin arrives at blu ray with AVC MPEG-4 1080p 2.35:1 encode. This is a beautiful and colourful film. Daytime exteriors - ranging from Parisian markets to planes taking off over green oceans to infinite sand dunes to seaside villages - look exquisite. Colours and textures pop, with the imagery constantly flirting between highly...

3.0 out of 5 starsMore Spielberg Than Hergé
I'm afraid I'm going to have to dare the ire of the fans. Because I was, it seems, less impressed by this film than most.

But first, the positives: the CGI was genuinely amazing. It successfully bestrode an intriguing middle ground between the cartoonish and something very, very close to photo-realism. From the waves on the ocean to the expressions on the...

This DTS HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless track is the only way to enjoy the modern action movie, with tremendous dynamic range. Dialogue is clearly defined. As a 7.1 experience, bullets ping and swirl in all channels, and the sound design really pulls you forward into the world by placing a number of nice effects, such as the airplane propeller, directly behind your ears. In my 9 Wilson Audio WATT/Puppies speakers home theatre system, this 7.1 track really immerses the audience in the midst of the action. (5/5)

TRIVIA AND GOOFS:

This picture was nominated for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score by John Williams, but lost to Ludovic Bource's The Artist. Personally, I was hoping that Hugo would win.

It has an estimated budge of $130 million, but worldwide gross so far is $369 million!

This is the first animated film directed by Steven Spielberg.

Originally, Steven Spielberg was going to do a live-action adaptation of Tintin, and called Peter Jackson to ask if his VFX company Weta Digital would work on the film, in particular creating a CGI Snowy. Jackson, as it turned out, was a longtime fan of Tintin, and convinced Spielberg that live action would not do justice to the comic books, and that motion capture was the best way of representing Hergé's world of Tintin. However, Snowy would still be CGI.

The seaplane is marked CN-3411 and Tintin says that the plane is the Portuguese Markings, but the code CN-3411 are the Moroccan Markings.

Allen orders his mate to bring TNT and the mate returns with dynamite. Dynamite contains no TNT, but is actually stabilized nitroglycerin.

After Tintin hijacks the seaplane, when paging through the flight manual, he comes across a page diagramming "your dashboard". In an aircraft it is called an instrument panel, never a dashboard.

This is Andy Serkis's third collaboration with Peter Jackson, as well as his fourth motion-capture role (he had earlier played the creatures Gollum and King Kong in features directed by Jackson and Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Sometime after being cast, Serkis joked that he was worried Peter Jackson would cast him as Tintin's dog Snowy.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The Adventures of Tintin is a fun, energetic adventure film that harkens back to the Saturday morning serials which inspired Spielberg's 'Raiders of the Lost Arc' (even though Tintin wasn't actually one of those inspirations). (By the way, the Indiana Jones trilogy on blu ray will be coming out later this year!) While not perfect, the film is a return to form for the director and features stunning, jaw-dropping filmmaking. However, because motion capture was used to animate the characters, some viewers may have trouble emotionally connecting with the material. I personally enjoyed the movie, with its crisp and detailed video and spectacular sound of John Williams. The additional bonus is that there is a $3 off mail-in coupon on the front of the disc that you can send to an address in Pickering, Ontario. This is in addition to the $5 off that I got from Amazon.ca at the time of purchase. The final cost is $16.99!!! Amazing value for this combo of blu ray disc, DVD plus Digital Copy. Highly recommended. I hope this review is helpful to you.

I can’t tell you why my seven year old son watches this movie once a month every month for the last two years or so but I can tell you that I’ve been forced to do so with him at least a dozen times and I don’t find it painful. The movie is a brilliant combination of animation and real life, Steven Spielberg did something new and different here, the story is a combination of three Tintin books and it makes for constant excitement and none stop action. Our only complaint, where is the sequel? There were suppose to be three of these – I would have loved to see the next two, if nothing else – my son would add them to the monthly rotation which would be welcomed. Great movie!

The world of animation has made enormous leaps and bounds in the last several decades with such epic productions as the "The Lion Tamer", "Avatar", and "Lord of the Rings". The secret of success has to be the advances the industry has made in such digital techniques as facial modelling, blue screening and key framing. This year's seminal production, according to the Academy, is another masterpiece of high artistic quality called "Tintin", a digital animation interpretation of Belgium cartoonist Herge's series covering the life of a young crime reporter in search of another adventure. The story is true to the original cartoon both in excellent type casting and voice-over for the main characters; people like the scrupulous and resourceful Tintin, the ever-crapulous Captain Haddock and the less-than-dangerous detective duo of Thomson and Thomson hot in pursuit of pick-pockets seem to contain a life-like verve as they plunge headlong into a world full of danger, unending intrigue and moments of humorous folly. I felt at home with this version of events; it effectively allowed me to feel like I was really in the middle of a speeded-up, come-to-life rendition of an old comic legend, and isn't that what good animation is all about. All or most of the detail is clear, the storyline is easy to follow, and the imagination is fully engaged as to all the spills and thrills that are about to take place.

I personally loved the story, which is rare enough in this day and age, but the attention to detail in the CG and the visual effects really put this movie over the top. I enjoyed it on my 3D TV and I found they did a great job using incorporating 3D into the movie without it being in your face the entire time. It's Action packed and great fun for the whole family (as long as you don't mind some drinking and period correct smoking). Also, as a person fluent in french, I enjoyed watching it in the classic cartoons native language.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to dare the ire of the fans. Because I was, it seems, less impressed by this film than most.

But first, the positives: the CGI was genuinely amazing. It successfully bestrode an intriguing middle ground between the cartoonish and something very, very close to photo-realism. From the waves on the ocean to the expressions on the characters' faces, the animators were extremely successful in creating a world that is solid, real, and compelling. It most definitely draws us in.

It is, as stated, more Spielberg than Hergé. The quiet, the stillness, and above all the restraint that were such hallmarks of Hergé's work are nowhere to be found. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Filmic interpretations do not have to be slavish copies, and this one certainly wasn't. I'm sure that many fans will be quick to point out that this is a film that almost constantly pays homage to the visual side of Hergé's work - particularly in some of its most iconic and best loved panels. And it's true: the film does do precisely that. However, the similarities are all on the surface. For those who look deeper, and compare this film's intricacy of detail, and above all its relentless, ceaseless motion with the minimalism of Hergé's famous "ligne claire" style, it is at once apparent that at a certain point Spielberg made the choice to go his own way. Indeed, the film tacitly admits as much at the very beginning, when this movie's "Tintin" has his portrait drawn by an artist at a market stall. The artist closely resembles Hergé, and the drawing the original vision of Tintin. We are being politely but firmly told that this will be a film that respects the original, but does not feel so beholden to it as to be nothing more than a carbon copy.

The true artist must have scope for interpretation.

This film also gave us not just one but two stand-out performances. Jamie Bell, in the titular role of Tintin, and Daniel Craig as both Sakharine and Red Rackham. Each actor brings a level of reality to their characters rarely to be found in animated features. This fits perfectly with the film's visual approach: it's that whole "intriguing middle ground" between the cartoonish and the photo-real that I spoke of earlier.

I was less impressed with Andy Serkis's performance as Captain Haddock, which was certainly more overtly cartoonish, and just plain less interesting. But it is worth stating that some of the minor characters were exceptionally well rendered, and very much in the spirit of Hergé's original versions. I'm thinking here particularly of the pickpocket, played by Toby Jones, and a two-bit thug by the name of Tom, played by Mackenzie Crook. I'd like to think that Hergé himself would've approved of both these performances.

Yet despite all the good stuff, I did feel that from a grown-up perspective, this movie let itself down in the writing. Particularly in terms of pacing, it's more like a bad Indiana Jones movie than anything else. Certainly so far as depth of characterisation goes, all the heavy lifting is done by the actors and the animators. The writers contribute almost nothing. The main problem is that after a promising start, the film rapidly degenerates into little more than one long action sequence, with only very brief, unconvincing, and ultimately uninteresting pauses along the way. At times the relentless action seems to exist as little more than a showcase for the animators' virtuosity. And as outstanding as the animation is, technical brilliance for its own sake does not a good film make.

Earlier I spoke of Hergé's work as possessing a certain restraint. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that I consider that restraint one of its defining stylistic features. This holds true not only on a visual level, but also in terms of story. Hergé knew when to give his readers time to think. A quiet moment here and there to reflect on what had happened and let it all sink in. Such moments are, I feel, sorely lacking in this movie. This film is all about the spectacular. It's a joy to look at and is without doubt a rollicking, two-fisted rocket-ride through adventure. But it's not a whole lot more than that.

Which is where, I believe, it really has let Hergé's original vision down.

Tin Tin(released Dec/11)is a brilliant animated feature directed by Steven Spielberg.The look and feel are totally life like;although the characters themselves are slightly exaggerated so one doesn't forget that this is just animation,when circumstances on screen get too"real" or not.Herge's creation has been around for years,being Belgian born and raised,and first hitting the media in the late 20s.Now Spielberg and company have gotten control of Herge's creation and come up with this new animated movie,full of excitement,comedy and adventure.And I believe Tin Tin is in good hands here.The plot involves Tin Tin,a Thin Man/Indiana Jones combo young man,and his faithful wire haired terrier Snowflake.He acquires a model ship at a flea market and from there his troubles start.It seems other agents want that ship too.It contains a scroll in one of the masts,one of three,that someone needs to complete a bigger puzzle,leading to a kings ransom.Tin Tin is captured and taken on board a ship.He meets up with Capt.Haddock,a drunk whose ship Tin Tin's captors have taken control of.When they reach land in Morocco they find another model ship owned by a Shiek and it is then Capt.Haddock relates the tale of his ancestor who captained the original ship the models are based on.It was his ancestor who had to purposely scuttle his own ship and only he and his descendants know the exact location of the treasure,everyone now seeks.The rest of the film is taken up trying to outwit and survive the onslaughts of those that would seek the treasure and kill Tin Tin,Snowy and Capt.Haddock.Will the adventuresome trio succeed?There is no doubt the ending was as spectacular as the events leading up to it.The sense of humour and twists and turns never abate throughout the film,which leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat awaiting what will happen next.It is not too many animated films that can generate this kind of excitement and interest,but this one does in spades.The only drawback I found was with the length and intricacy of the plot.While it may be fine for the older set,the younger ones tend to squirm in their seats.I know,having taken my grandchildren to its premiere and sitting in an audience full of children.Technically speaking the film is clear and crisp and in a 1:85:1 w/s a/r.Extras include featurettes on the making of Tin Tin and one on Snowy.All in all a highly recommended film for the whole family,filled with lots of exciting adventures and humour which will keep you on the edge of your seats from beginning to end.Be warned,the length and plot twists and turns might turn your younger ones into squirmers.Listen for the voice talents of Daniel Craig,Nick Frost,Simon Pegg,Andy Serkis,among many others.

Always liked the movie and the books for that matter. I was just a little disappointed with the digital download as it cannot be downloaded to my Android tablet. As such can only be accessed by windows & apple based machines. Having said this, the movie is wonderful.

Amazon has nicely put a big discount on the sale price. I think this is the lowest price that you can get in Canada. And, there is also a mail-in coupon for another $3 discount. I have watched this movie in 3D at theatre but I didn't like it. So I have been waiting for the bluray to come out so that I can watch it in 2D. And, I am right. 2D is much better! The movie and the story are great! I'll give 6 stars.